


Fallen Feathers

by tomatopudding



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Magical Realism, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, POV Second Person, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3917191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatopudding/pseuds/tomatopudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You remember when you were young and admired Mummy’s wings, your tiny fingers stroked copper feathers with reverence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallen Feathers

_You’re on the roof of the medical school, toes of your shoes just over the edge. The idea that you could fall if you leaned forward the slightest bit too much is dizzying and for just a moment you wobble, wanting to feel the way it makes you heart pound in your chest. It’s a rare day of sunshine in this London autumn and the bright rays warm your cheeks even as the accompanying brisk wind tries to chill them. Your fingers shake as you undo the soft cotton band that holds your wings close to your back. Despite the band’s removal, the pressure on your chest seems to tighten._

 

You remember when you were young and admired Mummy’s wings, your tiny fingers stroked copper feathers with reverence. She laughed and shuddered as your hands brushed ticklish areas.

“Sherlock,” she would giggle, drawing you to her chest and encasing you both in a feathery cocoon, “Stop that now.”

And you’d ask her how she got her wings, when you would get yours, how long until you could fly. Mummy just smiled and brushed ebony curls from your forehead.

“When you’re older,” she’d say, “You’ll learn about it when you’re older.”

 

_Your wings twitch and flutter, feathers flattened and ruffled from their confinement falling into place. Even that small movement creates a slight rush of air, adding to the slowly strengthening wind. You sway slightly on your perch, arms extending instinctively to help you balance and you only realize that your wings have done the same when you feel soft feathers brushing your spread fingers. You’ve never done this before and the muscles in your upper back protest the new and unusual movement._

 

You were almost twelve and your brother Mycroft was fifteen. His first boyfriend was seventeen and often came over for dinner. He was nice and funny and called you champ and you liked him. Mycroft looked at him with moony eyes and Daddy scowled, while Mummy simply smiled and whispered in your ear about first love when she tucked you in at night. You liked to snuggle under your blanket and listen with rapt attention and wide-eyed wonder.

It is on one such night, after you’d been tucked in and kissed goodnight, you were just on the brink between being awake and being asleep, everything hazy and unfocused in your brain, when the door squeaked open and the boyfriend came in. You thought it strange that he would mistake your room for the bathroom, which lies across the hall. He’d been over enough times to know his way around. The next moments always blur around the edges in your memory, but you felt his hand over your mouth to press it shut and every movement of him on you, in you, around you, consuming you, drew tears from your eyes and a pain in your shoulders that pulses in time. After, you cried silently as he slinked away without a backwards glance until you fell into a fitful, painful sleep filled with the image of his eyes boring into yours.

 

_Your breath catches in your throat as a feather slips between your fingers and you inadvertently pull it from your wing with a small pinprick of pain. You bring the ebony feather in front of you and let go, watching the wind carry it away on a twirling, twisting journey to the horizon. Your heart longs to soar with it._

 

You were thirteen when they start teaching about wings in school. The girls giggled when the teacher said sexual intercourse and looked at the boys who blushed with averted eyes. Everyone was enthralled when the teacher spread hers, the span close to eight feet of sleek topaz.

“Wings forged in love,” the teacher explained, “are stronger than any other.”

It would be many years before you found out that this was a lie, intended to promote abstinence, but at that moment, with the very tops of your own fledgling wings threatening to poke their way through you collar, you get a sinking feeling deep in your stomach that you will never be able to fly.

 

_Extending your wings deliberately is a whole different feeling. Thanks to the anatomy textbooks that sit in piles on your bedside table, you can name the muscles as they strain and move, feel when they reach their limit and revel in the ache. You lift slightly onto your toes, banking delicately on the precarious ledge. The wind blows through your hair and raises goosebumps on the back of your neck. The old scars criss-crossing the place where wings and back merge tingle as they stretch._

 

You tried to cut your wings off once. You were sixteen years old and tired of the stares of your classmates, the stares of people in the streets. You hated the way your wings separate you, pointed out the aberration that you are. Every insult your classmates throw at you fuels another swipe of the serrated kitchen knife. Tears rolled down your cheeks while the slowly oozing blood made the handle of the knife slick in your fingers. Dark obsidian feathers floated down to the ground indiscriminately, separated from you by the blade. The pain didn’t matter as long as you could get these monstrosities off of you for good. As the door to your bedroom slammed open, the world spun around you and everything went black, the sound of Mummy sobbing out your name echoed in your ears.

The doctors said that you were lucky you didn’t do any permanent damage. They said it was a miracle. You said it was a curse and silently vowed to try again when your parents couldn’t find you and your brother couldn’t bombard you with sympathetic cow eyes. They all knew where your wings came from, what that boy did, and they’ve looked at you differently since the wings had started growing. You closed your eyes and let the pain medication slip you into oblivion.

They made you go to therapy, trying to fix you. Whether it’s your mind that they’re trying to fix or your body you never knew. After the fourth unproductive session with as many doctors, your parents stopped trying.

 

_Even as you prepare to take flight, to truly take flight the way you’ve always dreamed, your teacher’s voice filters through you ear in a twisted whisper. Wings forged in love are the strongest. The subtext tells you that you will never survive; you will take your leap and plummet to the pavement below. You start to tremble with sudden fear, eyes squeezed shut and pushing the thought away, filling you mind with information you’ve memorized from your textbooks. “Although the alar crest exists on the medial edge of the scapula from birth, it is only after sexual intercourse that growth of the alar appendages begins. It is the act itself which promotes the growth, rather than the emotion behind it as was originally thought.”_

 

You met John near the end of the second year of your postgraduate study at a science school in central London that is housed within a medical school hospital. You study biology because you want to know how and why the body works the way it does, you study chemistry because the reactions are fixed. You need the science to fit into neat little parcels, you need to know. John was a medical student and shared many of your classes. His wings are sandy blonde and filled with strength. They never twitch the way yours do sometimes, as if he has more complete control, wings folded neatly against his back.

The teacher pointed him towards you for tutoring when the anatomy and physiology final exam begins to loom. Of course he would come to you for help. Everyone knows that you study wings; the anatomy of the back is so engrained in your mind that you see it when you close your eyes. When you agree to help him, his grin lights the room and your heart pounds.

 

“You’re not Flightless, you know,” John said.

It was just after winter break during the third year of your postgraduate. Since your forced meeting the school year before, you’d been spending more time together. He is kind and loyal, ignoring the derisive snorts of his classmates who tell him to stop hanging out with the know-it-all freak. It’s a word you’re not unfamiliar with. You’ve been labeled as such since the end of primary school.

“My sister Harry was just diagnosed as Flightless,” he continued, rocking back in his chair, wings slightly spread to keep his balance, “She has this odd look to her feathers, like they aren’t quite the right shape.” He eyed the binder you’ve been using since your wings became fully grown.

“You’re not Flightless,” repeated John, letting the front chair legs lower back to the ground and flipping through his text book.

 

_You wish John was here. You told him of your intention, but he’s late and you can’t wait any longer. You’re frightened and excited and nervous all at once, your brain a jumble._ You are not Flightless, _you think to yourself, flapping your wings once,_ it is the act itself that causes the reaction not the meaning behind it, _you flap again and your toes lift, but only for a moment._

 

“Trust me.”

John’s voice was soft, his breath hot on your ear. A year ago, you would have said no. A year ago, you dreaded tutoring him. A year ago, you barely knew him.

“Yes.”

The ropes that bound you together were just this side of being uncomfortably tight, his chest pressed against your back, pushing your feathers askew and displacing your cotton band. You felt crowded and constrained, but this was something you’d wanted for so long. His knees bent and he pushed from the roof, wings snapping to full extension. You are flying. You’re flying and it’s every bit as wonderful as you’d imagined. The world zipped by beneath you and the beating of John’s wings matched the beating of your heart. You could barely breathe.

He didn’t take you far, his flying license not permitting him to carry passengers. If you’d been caught by one of the many Met officers that swept the skies, he could have been fined, probably bound for several weeks, maybe even clipped. The illicitness just adds to the thrill. The landing was less than graceful, but you barely noticed, fingers fumbling to undo the knots of the rope that connected you. You felt more alive than you’d ever felt before. You couldn’t stop speaking, brain-to-mouth filter nonexistent, your every thought escaping without discretion, lips stretched into a wide grin, one of the first true smiles you’ve allowed yourself since that night. John only smiled back and accepted your gratitude and silenced you with his lips and forget flying because this, this is what you’d been waiting for your whole life. You’re momentarily reminded of a smothering hand on your mouth, but then there was a hand tangling in your curls and everything else melted away.

 

_“Sherlock.”_

_John’s voice is soft, but the sound of the roof door flinging open startles you and you rise from the roof once again. The lack of cement under your shoes throws you off balance and you lose where the roof is, reaching with your toes but only finding air. For several heart stopping moments, you are falling, the pavement suddenly seeming much further away than it was. Your wings are flapping, but seem to be ineffectual, panic rises and you think you might be sick, your eyes screw shut and you hope for it to be over quickly. When nothing happens, you allow yourself to open your eyes. Your descent has stopped and you hover tenuously, heart rising to your throat as you suddenly drop another meter before you instinctively extend your wings again. The ground is getting closer, but at a less alarming rate. Every time you try to flap, you plummet, heart pounding painfully, so you let the air slow your descent as gravity pulls you down. Your knees buckle when you hit the ground and you end up sprawled on your back, arms and wings akimbo, heartbeat and breath loud in you own ears, your feet tingling from the soft impact. All you can see above you is blue sky, white clouds tinged with gray. John’s face appears above you, eyes wide and worried._

_“Sherlock, are you—? Sherlock?”_

_Your smile unfurls slowly and it must look slightly manic, as John’s worry grows, eyebrows knitting together in a frown. He places a hand on your cheek and you simply smile wider, a laugh bubbling out unbidden. The frown on John’s face slowly shifts, his own laugh emerging as a soft snort through his nose. He swoops down to place a kiss on your lips and lying here on the cold pavement you feel as if you could touch the sun._

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved magical realism, but this is my first time writing it.


End file.
